According to Queeney

by Beryl Bainbridge

  He used his chamber pot before going downstairs, for that too must stay behind; it had a blue border of flowers below the rim and a chip in the porcelain base where his stick had struck it by mistake. As he passed through the quiet hall he saw his reflection in the glass, that of an old, wobbling man, belly bulging, legs swollen with the dropsy. Lastly, he went into the library and gazed upon the books that had been his companions for nigh on fifteen years. ‘Templo valedixi cum osculo,’ he said aloud, although he was not in church. On the walls hung the portraits of those once dear to him and now dead – Garrick, Goldsmith, Beauclerk, Thrale – and his own likeness hanging between the actor and the playwright. I am not yet gone, he thought, but might as well be.

  He composed a prayer before leaving and, head bent, murmured its sentiments for the benefit of Mrs Thrale and Old Nurse. Queeney would not join in; she stood in the drive, pushing the gravel into small heaps with the toe of her shoe. When the carriage bore them away from the place he had called home, Johnson sat with a book open in front of him, though his eyes were closed.

  During one of Mrs Thrale’s dinner parties at Brighton, Johnson behaved with such rudeness to her guest, Mr Hamilton, that the poor man was driven from the house. Mr Hamilton made the innocent remark that he considered claret to be a very fine drink. Johnson said it was not fine, and that a man would be drowned in it before he got drunk. It was possible Mr Hamilton was not praising claret in general, but simply complimenting his hostess on the wine provided that evening. Anxious to avoid a confrontation, for Johnson was already hissing like a kettle coming to the boil, Mr Hamilton promptly agreed with him, observing that having drunk three glasses he was beginning to suffer from a headache. ‘It is not the wine that makes it ache,’ Johnson shouted, ‘but the sense I am endeavouring to put into it.’

  ‘How so, Sir?’ asked Mr Hamilton, much puzzled. ‘A head cannot ache from sense—’

  ‘It can, Sir,’ roared Johnson, ‘if the head in question is not used to it.’

  Two nights later, at a ball in the old Malthouse, he complained so loudly and so bitterly of boredom that Mrs Thrale told him to his face that he ought not to have come, ‘as I am sure not one among us gains any pleasure from your company’. With respect to Mr Hamilton’s lack of sense, Johnson had spoken no more than the truth, but she was tired of his bullying ways.

  Afterwards, he attempted to apologise, but she brushed him aside. She had other matters on her mind, indeed was so disordered by the contemplation of them that she could no longer keep silent. The passion she harboured for Piozzi was now out of control – the mere mention of his name sent her pulses racing – and one morning, dressing in her bedchamber, she made a full confession to her eldest daughter.

  She began hesitatingly enough, and with frequent assurances as to the enduring affection in which she held her children. ‘Nothing I may feel for the man who has captured my heart’, she said, ‘detracts from the love I bear for you.’

  ‘How could it?’ said Queeney. ‘Your heart is so big, Mamma.’

  ‘My regard for your dear papa’, continued her mother, ‘was of a different degree … when he and I met I was ignorant of the world and of that whirling of the senses that betokens p … p … passion. He was a good man, a fine man, one who treated me with kindness and had an understanding of my—’

  ‘Fickleness,’ supplied Queeney.

  ‘Fickleness’, Mrs Thrale retorted, ‘arises from a feminine need to fix one’s soul to another. If that is denied, a woman may never know the reason for a deep and inner dissatisfaction.’

  ‘Now that you know of it,’ said Queeney, voice chill in tone, ‘what will you do?’

  Mrs Thrale’s plans for the future were comprehensive. She would marry Mr Piozzi and take Queeney, Susannah and Sophy to live in Italy; Cecelia and Harriet, for the time being, would board with Lady Lade. There was much to be settled. She could not take the children out of the country without the permission of the guardians appointed by Thrale, in particular, Mr Crutchley.

  Queeney went and stood at the window, so that her mother could not read her expression. She looked out at the shore and watched two bathing machines lumbering into the waves. We are all about to be sucked under, she thought, and blinked the angry tears from her eyes. Mamma’s feelings for the Italian had not come as a surprise; the soft glances, the signs and smiles that passed between them were the subject of gossip in the drawing rooms of both London and Brighton, and had been for many months. The mention of marriage, however, was unexpected and shocking.

  ‘You will like Italy’, said Mrs Thrale, ‘and, in time, dear Mr Piozzi.’

  ‘I like him now’, said Queeney, ‘as a singing teacher. I would like him less if I was required to think of him as a father.’

  ‘His mind is so attuned to the discipline of music’, argued Mrs Thrale, ‘that a knowledge of harmony precludes any desire for fatherhood.’

  ‘Are you asking for my opinion on the matter,’ asked Queeney, turning from the window, ‘or simply telling me?’

  ‘I would value your opinion,’ cried Mrs Thrale, eyes full of hope.

  ‘Well then,’ said Queeney, ‘if you must abandon your children, you must. You may turn us out to fend for ourselves, like puppies in a pond, to swim or drown as Providence pleases. I myself shall look out for a place as a servant and will never look upon your face again—’

  ‘Nor write to me,’ said Mrs Thrale, half smiling, in spite of herself, at such a childish outburst.

  ‘I shall not easily find your address, Madam, for you do not know where you are going—’

  ‘Dearest girl,’ coaxed Mrs Thrale, and held out her arms.

  ‘Mr Piozzi hates you and has told me so,’ her daughter shouted. ‘He is only after your money,’ and with that she sped from the room and out of the house.

  She was running down West Street towards the seafront when she saw Mr Johnson coming towards her. He had been swimming, and plodded barefoot, his bathing wrapper dripping water; a strand of seaweed clung to his ear. She would have fled past, but he caught her by the arm and peering into her tear-stained face asked what was wrong.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing beyond the ordinary tussles with Mamma.’

  He marched back with her to the shore and persuaded her to perch on the rocks below the cliffs, hoping the gentle lapping of the waves might calm her. The day was so limpid that sea and sky merged. A dog came by and sniffed at the girl’s ankle, at which she dropped to her knees and endeavoured to hold the animal in her arms. It backed off, kicking up sand, and trotted away.

  ‘You should be less trusting, Sweeting,’ he admonished. ‘The beast could have proved savage.’

  ‘I am not in the least trusting, Sir,’ she retorted, ‘and every day grow more conscious of savagery. There are worse injuries than the bite of a dog.’ The cynical force of her words, accompanied by a hurt defiance of manner, so disturbed him that he looked about for a distraction, and finding a species of lignite in the sand proceeded to give her a lecture on its properties. He explained it was strombolo, or sea coal, a composition of sulphur and salt, and recalled an experiment he had once attempted in the hall of Streatham Park, in which he had mixed it with a quantity of iron filings and heated both in a retort.

  ‘To what end?’ enquired Queeney.

  ‘I forget,’ he said, ‘for there was no end. Your dear Papa feared I would blow up the house, and you along with it, and ordered me to stop.’ Queeney giggled. Pleased he had lifted her spirits, he accompanied her back to the house.

  Mrs Thrale received visitors that afternoon, first Mr Crutchley and then Miss Burney, though only she had been expected. Mr Crutchley disappeared into Mrs Thrale’s chamber and descended within the hour grim of mouth and short on words. Johnson tried to question him; beyond a terse comment on the perfidy of women, Mr Crutchley refused to be drawn and soon departed.

  Miss Burney too went upstairs, even before she had removed her bonnet, and stayed there until dusk. At intervals, those
in the rooms beneath heard shrieks, whether of laughter or dismay none could tell, followed by protracted periods of silence. The younger children ran upstairs and came back wide-eyed, complaining that Mamma was not herself. Then, as the candles were about to be lit, Miss Burney appeared on the landing and called for Queeney.

  Mamma was lying face down on the bed, moaning. Miss Burney, eyes sparkling with excitement, said Mrs Thrale was demented at the thought of giving up Mr Piozzi. Mr Crutchley had told her she would not be allowed to take her girls abroad and would most certainly forfeit eight hundred pounds a year in income if she so persisted.

  ‘What do I care about the money?’ cried Mrs Thrale, voice muffled against the pillow.

  ‘She does not care about the money,’ interpreted Miss Burney.

  ‘She does not care about most things,’ responded Queeney, ‘least of all her children.’

  ‘That is not true,’ Mamma spat, sitting up on the bed, nose red and hair disordered. ‘It is not my fault that I adore Mr Piozzi. I did not set out to do so, I did not plan it … he is so amiable, his abilities so above his station … am I to abandon the hopes that I have cherished, let go the happiness within my reach—’

  ‘You must,’ cried Miss Burney, and turning to Queeney in some agitation, sought her support. ‘She must, mustn’t she?’

  ‘There is nothing she need abandon,’ said Queeney, ‘save her children.’ At which Mamma flung herself backwards and writhed about like an inmate of Bedlam. ‘How am I to choose?’ she wailed. ‘Had I two hearts I might survive. Having but one, it will break between you.’

  ‘Had you but one heart’, pronounced Queeney, ‘you would not think there was a choice.’

  On going downstairs she encountered Mr Johnson loitering in the hall. She told him that Mamma, tired of London, was anxious to live abroad, and that Mr Crutchley had advised against it. ‘Knowing Mamma, as you and I do,’ she said, ‘it comes as no surprise she is disturbed at being opposed.’

  If he knew what she was keeping from him, he gave no sign. Indeed, that night he was in such good spirits that he diverted the company with the tale of a Newfoundland dog who had behaved like a bird on the nest.

  Johnson was asleep in his bed at Bolt Court, or rather thought he slept, when he was startled by a flash of light striking the side of his face, a light so luminous that he was blinded. A moment later, sight restored, he was aware that he had lost the power of speech, not from a testing of his ability to utter words, rather that in his head he knew the facility had left him. To prove such a calamity, he opened his mouth and dumbly recited, ‘I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.’ Hearing nothing, he reached for his stick at the side of the bed and gathering what little remained of his strength banged it repeatedly upon the floorboards.

  Some minutes later, Frank Barber, fortunately engaged in seeing to the fire in the parlour, heard his knocking and came upstairs. By means of sign language, Johnson instructed the alarmed Frank to bring him paper and pen, and laboriously wrote, Fetch me a doctor. His handwriting, though inclined to wander on the page, was legible.

  Soon after, Mrs Williams rushed into the room and demanded to know what ailed him. Scoring out the words Fetch me, he replaced them with I need, at which she, hearing the scratching of his pen, ran demented about the room. In spite of his dilemma, the thought of the mute and the blind conjoined in such a catastrophe struck him as so comical that he succumbed to a convulsion of silent laughter.

  He was laid low for four months, during which period, in spite of letters sent informing her of his illness, Mrs Thrale made no attempt to visit him. It was true she wrote back, effusively wishing him well and emphasising her concern, but she did not come in person.

  He remembered the last time he had seen her, some weeks after her return from Brighton, when she had informed Mr Crutchley and the guardians that she had given up her intention of residing abroad and would retire instead to Bath, where, she vowed, she would establish a household, live economically and devote herself to her daughters. Samuel, of course, would be assured of a room in her new home.

  He had visited her house on the eve of her departure and presented Queeney with a Latin Grammar and a Virgil. ‘Dear Mistress,’ he had addressed Mrs Thrale, ‘God go with you,’ and gazing long and intently into her eyes, kissed her cheek. On his way home to Bolt Court he had been obsessed with the dismal notion that he would not see her again.

  Now, frail and pining, he reasoned it was not death that would part them, rather her withdrawal from his life.

  Mrs Desmoulins was dusting the parlour when she heard him shout out in the room above. She ran to the foot of the stairs, but no further. He was become so uncertain of temper that it was not wise to disturb him unless summoned. He shouted again, but this time it was a string of words, none of which she understood, followed by a thud, as though a book had been thrown to the floor. As he had been learning the Dutch language for some months, she concluded it was proving difficult.

  The anguish Johnson felt was so extreme that he beat his head against the wall. Above him hung a miniature of Mrs Thrale; snatching the likeness from its peg, he flung it to the floor. The recognition of his gullibility, his stupidity, struck him like a hammer blow. That he, who prided himself on his knowledge of human nature, of the vanity of human wishes, should have been so blind as to mistake the hope for the reality put his mind in turmoil.

  When he had partially recovered his senses, he sat down at his desk, and, writing in the grip of such rage and emotion that the quill bent beneath the pressure of his angry fingers, penned a reply to Mrs Thrale’s shameful communication:

  Madam, if I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married; if it is yet undone, let us once talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness; if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief. If the last act is yet to do, I, who have loved you, esteemed you, reverenced you and served you, I who long thought you the first of human kind, entreat that before your fate is irrevocable, I may once more see you.

  She wrote back, rebuking him for failing to acknowledge that she was in search of happiness, a pursuit he had once considered laudable. His reply was less heated, in that he wished her well and said he would not forget the kindness that had soothed twenty years of his wretched life.

  Fanny Burney visited him some weeks later. She was apprehensive as to how she would deal with the subject of Mrs Thrale, should that lost lady’s name enter the conversation. Dr Burney said she need not be anxious, as he was sure Mr Johnson had shifted her from his mind, and besides the name was now Piozzi, not Thrale.

  Her father was wrong; no sooner had she entered the room than Johnson began to interrogate her on the events of those last months in Bath, for, he said, frowning thunderously, he himself had been left in the dark.

  Miss Burney did her best to shed light on the matter. ‘Mrs Thrale – as she then was – bending to the wishes of Queeney and Mr Crutchley, exiled Mr Pi—’

  ‘Do not mention that name,’ Johnson roared, striking his breast with his fist.

  ‘She told him’, continued Miss Burney, storing in her mind, for future fiction, Johnson’s countenance and gestures, ‘that he must return to Italy. Before he left he called on Queeney and thrust into her hands letters previously written by Mrs Thrale. Apparently he wept, but she, brave girl, coolly accepted them and showed him the door. Mrs Thrale shut up the house in Brighton and retired to Bath, but she was not herself.’

  ‘Not herself indeed,’ growled Johnson. He adopted a curious stance, arms spread wide and hands upraised, as though to stop the walls from closing in.

  -‘Soon,’ said Fanny, ‘Mrs Thrale began to show signs of disorder – after midnight she took to roaming the garden singing of love and kisses. Once, she would have wandered out naked had not Old Nurse prevented her. Frequently she cried out, “My heart, my soul, my Pi … my singing teacher.” She lost her appetite, her delight in
company, her temper, though Queeney claimed the last had always been unstable. From pecking at her food, she progressed to eating nothing at all. If she was forced, she vomited, and at last was in grave danger of wasting away. A doctor being summoned, and grudgingly acquainted with the reasons for her decline, he urged that … the man … be sent for at once. He vowed he would not be responsible for the life of his patient if his advice was ignored.’

  When she reached the end of her sorry narrative, Johnson no longer frowned. Now, his expression was so pitiful, his brow so etched with misery, that Miss Burney wished herself invisible. He sat down and studied his feet; she could not help noticing that though his chair was missing a leg, he maintained his seat without effort. Perhaps, she thought, he has always been accustomed to imbalance, though again, it could be the dropsy in his legs that sustained his equilibrium.

  The silence becoming oppressive, she searched her mind for diverting topics. She was about to mention the restoration of estates forfeited by Jacobites, when he suddenly cried out, ‘Did she dwell on me?’

  ‘That she did,’ Fanny answered, and hesitated.

  ‘Speak out,’ he cried.

  ‘Frequently she spoke of her break from you and declared she hoped you would forgive her—’

  ‘I asked for the truth,’ he said.

  ‘She thought your expectations too high.’

  ‘Madam, she was right,’ said he, and rising from his broken chair, eyes full of tears, gestured for her to leave.

  Tiptoeing down the stairs she was waylaid by Mrs Desmoulins, who enquired of her whether she saw a change in Mr Johnson.

  ‘No,’ she lied, for she was past talking.

  ‘Did you not notice his eyes?’ persisted Mrs Desmoulins. ‘They have grown larger, and now carry the gaze of a child.’